


swallowing mud, swallowing glass

by phcbosz



Category: La casa de papel | Money Heist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Recovery, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Therapy, Trans Martín Berrote, as that is my brand
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:40:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25769056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phcbosz/pseuds/phcbosz
Summary: Sergio first finds him on a sunny day. Martín’s ass is sweating and his shirt is stuck to his back.
Relationships: Berlin | Andrés de Fonollosa/Palermo | Martín Berrote, Palermo | Martín Berrote & Professor | Sergio Marquina
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47





	swallowing mud, swallowing glass

**Author's Note:**

> pls check the tags !!

Sergio first finds him on a sunny day. Martín’s ass is sweating and his shirt is stuck to his back. When Sergio enters the room, the smell of expensive cologne follows him inside and Martín barely refrains from sniffing the air like a curious dog. It's been so long since he has showered, since he has smelled anything other than blood, sweat, or smoke, or the rotting of his body like he is decaying while still alive.

His eyes are full of concern. That’s the first thing Martín notices.

“Holy shit! Did someone accidentally call a librarian while trying to call the police?” He laughs. (He is drunk. He is always drunk these days.) Doesn’t stand up because he knows his ass is damp from sitting on his leather chair for so long.

“Martín, I've been looking everywhere for you--”

Martín interrupts him then. Now looking back, he can’t remember what he said. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t remember if Sergio sat down or not.

It’s not like it matters. But he feels like he should remember.

*

The next time he sees Sergio, it’s raining. He is soaked, shivering, the raindrops running down his cheeks feel like tears and he honestly can not tell if he is crying.

Sergio looks warm, wearing a thick brown coat with fur on the collar. Martín's hand are numb and he barely hears Sergio over the sound of the rain hitting the ground. Thud thud thud. Mother nature is angry, Martín thinks.

He doesn’t know why he is out on the porch. He doesn’t know why he trashed a bunch of shit inside his apartment. He doesn’t know why he broke that picture of him and Andrés. He wants to go inside but he can’t move.

Sergio looks warm. Sergio looks at him like he can't quite recognize him.

Martín understands. He looks different. He doesn’t recognize himself either.

*

“What’s wrong?” Sergio asks him, his eyes big and brown.

The day is sunny and it doesn’t fit Martín’s gloomy mood at all. Martín finds himself wishing the sun would die already.

“Martín, what’s wrong?” Sergio keeps asking. Martín thinks maybe he will ask until Martín answers.

He doesn’t answer. He is comfortable inside his bed, and he feels like floating or like he is in a dream. Every minute now, he thinks. I’ll wake up. I have to.

He looks sick inside the crimson sheets that remind him of blood. His hair is greasy and the bags under his eyes are heavier than his heart. His lips taste like copper and smell like blood every time he licks them.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to get up. It’s that he can’t. He wishes he could tell Sergio, but his mouth won’t work and he doesn’t have lungs.

*

When Sergio drinks, he gets tipsy. He drinks and has fun.

When Martín drinks, he gets drunk. He drinks and he gets _drunk._

He is an asshole when he is drunk.

*

“I’m sorry,” he says the next day, his head is pounding but he doesn’t care. Pain is good. It keeps him grounded. And as long as he is hurting, he is alive, he thinks.

“It’s okay,” is Sergio’s reply. It’s not okay and they both know it. But that’s Sergio Marquina for you. “You’re okay.”

The words feel heavier than they should be, and they stick to Martín’s skin like melted plastic. He burns. He itches. Scratching at his wrists hurts but he is alive, he is alive.

He feels like spitting on Sergio’s face but his mouth is too dry for it.

*

Martín looks at his hands, flexes his fingers. They are not his hands. This is not his body.

*

It’s Sergio who wraps his hand up. Picks the broken glass of the ground. He looks confused, like he can’t understand why Martín would do something like this--Martín doesn’t know why he would do something like this.

All he understands is that he wanted to pick one of the jagged edged pieces of the ground and drive it through his skin until he bled out on the fucking ground. A present for Sergio to find. It’s Christmas after all.

“What’s wrong, Martín?” Sergio asks him.

“It was an accident.” Martín is a good liar. Sergio is better at seeing through lies.

Sergio refuses when Martín offers him a beer. He looks sick. Concerned. He is watching Martín’s every move like a hawk, and the stare burns Martín’s skin, makes him shift from one foot to another.

He doesn’t want Sergio to look at him. He kicks Sergio out that day, though the roads are frosty and it’s heavily snowing. When Sergio tries to protest, Martín slams the door shut on his face.

The road are frosty and it’s heavily snowing. If Sergio crashes his car and dies, it would be a real fucking bummer. Maybe Martín would feel guilty enough to kill himself then.

Inside his empty house, he is cold. He takes off his clothes until he is only in his boxers, looks at himself in the mirror.

The scars on his chest aren’t his own. The scars on his thighs aren’t his own. The scars on his back aren’t his own.

He unwraps the gauze on his wrist. These are all he has. The only thing on his body that belongs to him.

The lines look angry, jagged, but Martín loves each and every one of them. They are like his children. He created them. He made this. He did this to himself. _He doesn’t know why._

He unwraps his hand too. Punches the wall until he breaks his middle finger.

There is nobody around to drive him to the ER so he doesn’t go to the hospital. It throbs. Hurts like a fucking bitch, the pain so bad Martín can’t sleep.

It’s okay. He likes it when it hurts. He wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway.

During the night, his house is even cooler. Martín feels like dying. He doesn’t cry. He doesn’t.

*

Sergio doesn't come back. Martín doesn't want to blame him but he blames him, he blames Sergio for everything--

_Look at what you did to me, asshole,_ he wants to scream, _are you happy now?_ You did this to me, you did this to me--

He just doesn't want to accept that what Andrés did, he did all by himself. Sergio played no part in it.

Andrés destroyed Martín, and he did it all by himself.

Martín should have expected it, really. Loving Andrés was a lot like swallowing glass, swallowing cement, swallowing the whole sea until you drown.

Andrés is a cruel man, and he did this to Martín, he did this--

Maybe, Martín just doesn't want to blame himself for all the things he could have been but did not become.

*

He puts up his chairs on the wall. Or he must have. He doesn't remember doing it, he doesn't remember a lot these days, everything blurring together like the way water blends with blood, turns a pinkish, brownish color, and you can't quite tell what it is unless you smell it.

He brings them all down, sits in the middle of the room and looks around. There is a ghost inside his house. It's him.

He is trying to prove to himself he is alive, still, he is still alive, and he doesn't think he should be.

*

He throws out the crimson sheets. They remind him of Andrés. Most everything does, actually.

He goes out and buys white sheets, pure white, just like he has wanted to for a long time, and when he puts them on the bed, they stick out like a sore thumb, in the middle of all the mess and the sins of the room, the only thing that's pure--

*

He tries to leave a note, but then it seems too much like a love letter, and he hasn't told Andrés _I love you_ , not really, and he doesn't want to, he doesn't want Andrés to know that Martín ever loved him, he wants Andrés to think about it for the rest of his life, wonder, he doesn't want to leave anything behind, but he doesn't want to be forgotten either, he doesn't want to disappear--

Nobody will miss him when he is gone, anyway. It seems pointless to write a note no one will ever read.

If Martín has to live, he only wants to live inside Andrés' head.

*

He puts on music, too loud, maybe, it makes his ears hurt.

He gets on the bed, knows he needs warm water, but can't find it in himself to care--

He just needs to stain the sheets red, because they are mocking him, have been ever since the day he bought them, and he hates being mocked by his own fucking sheets--

Bringing the razor up to his lips, he gives it a final kiss. _Let's see how pure you will be now,_ he thinks, or maybe even says out loud, and so what if he is talking to his sheets?

It's not like it matters anyway. So what if he has gone mad?

Nothing will ever matter again, after this.

It brings a smile to his face, the thought. He is just so tired of dying everyday, he is just so tired of everything, and it bring a smile to his face, the thought of how he is about to make it all stop.

*

It doesn't even hurt. He is too drunk and drugged for it. And he passes out quite easily. Closes his eyes, and goes to sleep, with the gentle thought of not waking up easing his mind.

But he doesn't die.

*

At the hospital, they call his emergency contact. Martín forgot it was Andrés, he really did, and he curses himself--

He can't even kill himself properly and now Andrés will know, Andrés will know just how weak and useless he is as if the man didn't have enough reasons to not come back.

He thinks about Andrés rolling his eyes, proud of himself for getting out when he could, for not getting caught up in Martín's sticky spider webs, for realizing how unnecessary Martín is to him early on.

Martín doesn't really want Andrés to see him this way--

He really doesn't.

Still, when they tell him _Mr. Fonollosa hung up, is there anyone else we could call?_ It hurts like a bitch.

Of course Andrés hung up. Martín should have never expected the man to care in the first place.

"No," he replies, licking his lips, and smiles at the nurse, wider than he should, probably, because the nurse looks concerned, "there's nobody else."

There's nobody else. Martín has nobody else--not like he even has Andrés, anyway.

And then he starts laughing so much he starts crying, and then he is crying so much he is dying, the room getting smaller by the minute, his lungs burning hotter, and he can't breathe at all--

This is not how I thought it would be, he thinks, but I accept it anyway.

A death is a death. And death multiplied by death is infinite--why would it matter how he dies? Nobody will even come to his funeral.

He thinks about all the people he has killed, little Julia he killed when he was a teen, little Julia he butchered so he could breathe easier, so he could stand up straighter, so he could be Martín; he thinks about the Martín he is killing right that second.

It's kind of poetic, how infinite death is, how small Martín's death will be.

Death multiplied by death, is nothing, he thinks, right before he passes out.

For all his troubles, they put him in the psych ward and call it a day.

**Author's Note:**

> find me at [twt](https://mobile.twitter.com/transpalermo)


End file.
